The Face[脸]
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FROM THE MORE REMOTE ROOMS IN PALAZZO Rospo, Fric gathered earthquake lights in a picnic hamper.
The mansion and the outlying buildings had been re-engineered for seismic security and retrofitted with structural reinforcements that were supposed to ensure little or no damage even from a two-minute shaker peaking at 8.0 on the Richter scale.
Generally, 8.0 was considered to be the kiss-your-ass-good-bye number. Earthquakes that big struck only in movies.
If a humungous killer quake knocked out the city’s power supply, Palazzo Rospo would be able to rely on gasoline-fueled generators in a subterranean vault that had two-foot-thick, poured-in-place, steel-reinforced walls and ceiling. Following a regional catastrophe, the mansion should remain fully lighted, the computers should continue to run, the elevators should still be operating, the refrigerators should remain cold.
In the rose garden, the carved-granite fountain of urinating cherubs should continue to sprinkle eternally.
This backup would be less useful if heretofore unknown volcanoes erupted under Los Angeles and disgorged rivers of molten lava that turned hundreds of square miles into a smoldering wasteland or if an [402] asteroid smashed into Bel Air. But even a star as famous and rich as Ghost Dad could not protect himself from cataclysm on a planetary scale.
If the Swiss-made generators in the bunker were disabled, then Frankenstein-castle banks of twenty-year batteries, each as big as a casket standing on end, instantly came into service. These supported limited emergency lighting, all computers, the security system, and other essential equipment for as long as ninety-six hours.
Should the city’s electric power fail, should the generators be wrecked, should the giant twenty-year batteries prove useless, there were many earthquake lights distributed throughout the house. Personally, Fric figured such a series of failures was likely only in the event of an invasion of extraterrestrials with magnetic-pulse weapons.
Anyway, according to Mrs. McBee, there were 214 quake lights, which meant you could safely bet your life that there were not 213 or 215.
These small but potentially bright, battery-powered flashlights were at all times plugged into electrical outlets in the baseboard, continuously charging. If the power failed, the quake lights at once switched on, providing enough pathway illumination to allow everyone to exit safely from the mansion in the darkest hours of the deepest night. Furthermore, they could be unplugged and carried as though they were ordinary flashlights.
Like the cover plate on the electrical outlet in which it was seated, the plastic casing of each flashlight matched the color of the baseboard on which it rested: beige against limestone baseboard, dark brown against mahogany, black against black marble. ... During ordinary times, they were meant to be inconspicuous. When you lived with them day after day, you soon ceased to notice them.
No one but Mrs. McBee would be likely to realize that a dozen of those 214 were missing. Mrs. McBee wouldn’t return from Santa Barbara until Thursday morning.
[403] Nevertheless, Fric filched quake lights only from remote and little-used rooms where their disappearance was less likely to cause inquiry. He needed them for his deep and special secret hiding place.
He stowed the lights in the picnic hamper because it had a hinged lid. As long as he kept the lid closed, the contents could not be seen if he unexpectedly encountered a member of the staff.
If anyone asked what was in the hamper, he would lie and say “Sandwiches.” He would tell them that he was going to camp out under a blanket tent in the billiards room, where he would pretend that he was a Blackfoot Indian living back in maybe 1880.
The whole concept of playing Blackfoot in the billiards room was monumentally stupid, of course. But most grownups believed that geeky ten-year-old boys did stupid, geeky things like that, so he would be believed, and probably pitied.
Having people pity you was better than having them think that you were as crazy as Barbra Streisand’s two-headed cat.
That was one of Ghost Dad’s expressions. When he thought someone didn’t have both oars in the water, he said, “The guy’s as crazy as Barbra Streisand’s two-headed cat.”
Years ago, Ghost Dad had signed a deal to make a movie directed by Barbra Streisand. Something had gone terribly wrong. Eventually, he backed out of the project.
He had never said a negative word about Ms. Streisand. But that didn’t mean they were as friendly and as eager for mutual adventures as all the little animals in The Wind in the Willows.
In the entertainment Business, everyone pretended to be friends even if maybe they hated each other’s guts. They were kissy-faced, gushy-lovey, always hugging and backslapping, praising one another so convincingly that Sherlock Holmes couldn’t have figured out which of them really wanted to kill which others.
According to Ghost Dad, no one in the business dared tell the truth about anyone else in the Business because each of them knew [404] that any of the others was capable of conducting a bloody vendetta of such viciousness that it would have scared the shit out of the meanest Mafioso.
Barbra Streisand didn’t actually have a two-headed cat. This Was just a “metaphor,” as Fric’s father called it, for some story element or character that she had wanted to add to her movie after Ghost Dad signed up based on a script without the two-headed cat.
He thought the two-headed cat was a totally crazy idea, and Ms. Streisand thought that it would win the picture a shitload of Oscars. So they agreed to disagree, kissed, hugged, swapped praise, and backed away from each other unbloodied.
This morning, in the hallway outside the kitchen, when Fric had almost told Mr. Truman about the mirror man and Moloch and all of it, he had come perilously close to being considered as crazy as Barbra Streisand’s two-headed cat. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
His mother had once been committed to a booby hatch.
They would think, Like mother, like son.
His mother had been released after ten days.
If Fric started talking about mirror men, they would never let him out. Not in ten days, not in ten years.
Worse, if he were in the booby hatch, Moloch would know exactly where to find him. There was no place to hide in a padded cell.
Carrying the picnic hamper as if he were on an Easter-egg hunt, stealthily collecting quake lights in a back staircase, in a back hall, in the tea room, in the meditation room, Fric kept reminding himself, “Sandwiches, sandwiches,” because he worried that when he finally encountered a maid or porter, he would become tongue-tied and forget what lie he had meant to tell.
By nature, he was not a good liar. In a time and place where you needed to lie merely to pass for normal, in a place and time when he needed to lie to survive, being a lousy liar could get him killed.
“ Sandwiches, sandwiches.”
He was a moronically bad liar.
[405] And he was alone. Even with some kind of half-assed guardian angel, he was really alone.
Every time he passed a window, he was reminded also that the stormy day was melting away rapidly and that Moloch would most likely come in the night.
Short for his age, thin for his age, a bad liar, alone, tick-tick-tick: He had nothing going for him.
“Pandwiches,” he muttered to himself. “Just some jellybutter-and-seanut pandwiches.”
He was doomed.
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